March 31 - April 3 - Trip to Seattle

Since orchard work is about to start with a vengeance, we took a long weekend trip up to visit friends in Washington, originally we planned to go to the tulip festival, but the season is quite a bit later than it normally is so we played to tourist for several days. Now I thought that we had seen just about all there was to see locally when we went up there in August, boy was I wrong, we could fill several visits with things to do there.
The evening we arrived our host took us for a beautiful walk in the wood by their house. At the head of the trail there is a huge stump of a fallen tree that had been logged off. It had holes carved into it for the loggers to stand on. It must have been absolutely magnificent when those trees were standing, and I can't even imagine how much wood came off the tree.

Along the path there was lots of rope course obstacles hanging from the trees, Shea had lots of fun with some of them.

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Our hosts very generously played tour guide and took us to go see some daffodil fields which were in full bloom, and Janessa got some amazing pictures!\

The next morning, so April Fools day, they took us up to Seattle and we spent all day playing the tourist. Just about everything you can do for free in Seattle we did. It's absolutely amazing how much you can see of one of the most historical cities in the West United Sates for practically nothing! We had an awesome time! The first stop was Seattle Center, and the Mo Pop museum, which we didn't actually go in, but we had a great time walking around the Center. The first things we saw were theses weird poles that had absolutely no rime or reason to them, but they made a great Photo prop.

 In the center is this huge rope made playground, we had just had a couple of long drives under our belt, so we all jumped in and played in and around the playground for well over an hour. For a couple of us, this was the best part of the trip and for all of us it was in the top 5 best things we did.

And of course, towering over the entire center was the Seattle Needle tower. WARNING! This made a great photo prop, so you'll see it a lot.

We rode the Monorail next, for us country hicks, we all got quite a kick out of it. Gabriel was fascinated with how it drove and asked the driver a million questions.

We had a nice, long walk down town to the library, and Janessa took lots of pictures of the ornamental work on the outside of the buildings.

We walked past a building and staring right at us, was the very odd building! This ladies and gentlemen is the Seattle Library, easily the weirdest building I have ever seen. If any of y'all end up in Seattle, you can't leave until you see the inside of this building.

Janessa took lots of picture of the inside, but I'm only going to use a couple, for two reasons. One this blog post will probably be putting you to sleep by now as long as it is, and two ya'll will just have to come see for yourselves. In one of the many rooms of the library is a map room with the cool globe. We spent quite some time looking at the geography of the history we've been studying in school. It is so neat when you get to see how the shape of the rocks can effect history and often do.

 The colors in this place are absolutely amazing, and the many escalators to get up to the top floor were painted in this poison green color.

Back down to the Center after that to see the Fountain and eat lunch. When I was told we were going to watch a fountain, I had the idea of a classic fountain in my mind, let me tell you, there was nothing classic about this fountain. It had the most random way of spraying, and everyone was trying to time it so they could touch the fountain without getting wet.

We were all running out of gas about now so we slowly started back toward the car, but we did take time to get some pictures of the group at the base of the tower.

 At the base of the tower is a museum and the 4 corner posts of the museum are the legs of the tower. Shea made a really nice effort to unscrew the 12 inch bolt of the tower, but even with all the leverage that he has, it didn't do any good, made for a funny photo though.

 On the way out, this man waylayed us with his constant banter and balloon creations. He had us all mesmerized for quite some time.

Such a fun day, filled with memories!!

March 10 - First Real Work Day

This hard winter has really been a mixed blessing for us, we have really hit school hard, but let me tell you, we were ready to get out and about on a nice day! Today we all headed down to the orchard and worked on the south pump and multiple other projects that have needed attention (like Conrad proofing his pen :).

Daddy had hired a skid steer to do some digging today, almost all of us got to learn how to drive it.

 This is what our river screen looks like out of water. We will probably put it in the river in a month or so.

 Azure spoiled us this year, and now we have a new forklift, since both of our old ones went down last spring. We are so pleased to have it!!

 Gabe's new purchase is a Go-Cart from his cousin, Royal. It needs a little work, but he learned a bunch getting it fixed, and it will be such an amazing tool this summer for him.

Gabe's Week-long Birthday

For one reason or another, Gabe's birthdays seem like they either go on for days or they get postponed for days. This year is no exception. The reason for this year's crazy long birthday was mostly because Gabe's heart is so big that he didn't want anyone to miss out on a birthday party. Our church was having a cleaning day, to clean out the attic of our church building, which has had bat problems. Gabe wanted to postpone his birthday so that all of his friends could share his cake with him. So on his birthday day all he wanted to do was play a huge, long game of Blind Man's bluff, which was a blast!

 Janessa surprised him with a new game that he has been wanting for a long time, so we ended the day with everyone playing Bonanza, and learning his birth story again. Super fun day and 11 years went by far too fast!!

A little over a week later was the cleaning day. All the men worked so hard getting that attic cleaned out, while the women prepared the meal and the kids took over the gym for a couple hours. It really was a great day for everyone involved!

Janessa, as always, did an amazing job with his cake! 

All of the men that work in the orchard absolutely love Gabe and how much boldness he has, so they bought a Remote Control Truck for their "el nino's" birthday. So Janessa used that truck as her model for the cake.   

Since orchard season is about ready to get underway again, we took this weekend to take a good family fun day. Gabriel chose to go bowling, which we haven't done since we went with GRACE Homeschool group in Texas.

 In the bowling alley there was an arcade! So we all had to try everything.

We spent the night in an hotel, where Gabe opened his gifts, one of which was a basketball. He is playing Pee Wee Basketball this year and wanted lots of time to practice up for that.

And when we got home the evening of the next day, our mountain was covered in snow again...the last big snow of the year. 

February 5 - Ice Breakup

Okay so I'm finally getting around to updating the blog again. I am going to just jump ahead, so that y'all are more updated in recent happenings. This post is still a little bit behind, but it sure was a big deal around here. This winter was very unusual for this area, and was very cold. The snow pack was much larger, and the river was totally iced over super thick. In fact Zach had walked out on it the day it all broke up and it held him. Anyway, our horse pen is on high ground, but it's still near the river so we could bring water up for them. On a Sunday morning, Zach was down there doing chores and he went down to the river to get water. He chopped through the ice and everything looked totally normal. Then he headed back over to the pen. He said he heard what sounded like a gunshot, which at that time of year isn't all that unusual. While he was in the horse pen pouring water, all of a sudden the ground got really mushy and then he could visibly see the water rise under his feet. He was just getting ready to move animals, when it went down again. He called home and we all came down to see the river ice move down.

It lasted for about an hour, the river rose to an amazing height. Under the bridge, which usually is ankle deep in the summer, the water had raised to the height of over 7' high.

  Many of the chunks were massive, some as big as cars. When the water receded it left a wall of ice chunks high up in both banks of the river.
It was amazing to get to watch the power of this river in action!

August 22 -24 - Puget Sound

Several years ago, while our family still lived in Colorado, our music teacher and her family moved up to Washington state. We haven't kept in touch very much since they moved other than once or twice a year.

Well now that we live in Oregon we all have wanted to go and visit them, this weekend we all headed up to Puget Sound, which, by the way, is almost literally right out their back yard. We had a blast with these wonderful people. They were so great about taking us to so many of the landmarks of Puget Sound.




Janessa brought her camera along and got some really beautiful pictures of our trip.

The bridge over Deception Pass.

Our first stop on the tour was Deception Pass, which had the magnificent bridge spanning the inlet! The monument to the history of this pass reads as follows: " Named by Captain George Vancouver 10 June, 1792. Felling that he had been " deceived" as to the nature of the inner waterway. Port Gardner (now Saratoga Passage) he wrote on his chart "Deception Pass". He honored Master Joseph Whidbey who found the passage while commanding a small - boat crew of explorers, by naming the island Whidby." 

While we were walking on the bridge, Garrett yelled, "Hey guys, I think I see an otter!" and sure enough, we got to watch a couple otters playing and eating about 4 stories beneath our feet.

After that, we headed to the beach that was down a ways from the passage to have lunch and play. Even though it is August the water is still frigid! But even still there was no way we were passing up a chance to play in the ocean.

Zach playing with the "Bull Whip Kelp" that was laying all over the beach.

The Pogue family and Friends on the beach.

Being used to seeing wildlife Eastern Oregon, we were having so much fun seeing the creatures Oregon Coast style. Every tide pool had so many weird and amazing creatures!

Next stop was one of the many forts along the coast, that had been used to train troopes for years. The all time favorite part of the fort for all of us was the guns, which were huge! The nearby lighthouse had been turned into a museum for both lighthouse and fort. One of the stories we heard was of an attack on the US by a foreign sub and this fort and the one across the sound both opened fire on it and either sank her or sent her packing. 

View of the Sound from the top of the lighthouse.

Afterward it was back to the house for burgers and friend time.

The next morning we headed back home with a small detour to Mount St. Helens.

Our family had a fantastic time and are so looking forward to the next visit!